English Congregation were a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 ensemble

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

. They formed in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 under the name The Congregation (under which they had their largest and only hit, a cover of David & Jonathan

David and Jonathan (band)

David and Jonathan was the name used by the British pop music duo Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook.They began working together in 1965 in Bristol, England, and wrote the songs "This Golden Ring" and "You've Got Your Troubles" for the group The Fortunes...

's Softly Whispering I Love You which peaked at #29 on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart

Record chart

A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....

. It also reached #4 on the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

, number 1 in South Africa and #10 in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

), but changed their name in 1972 to avoid confusion with other similarly named bands. The group's lead singer was Brian Keith, who later became a session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

. The lack of further chart presence left them as transatlantic one-hit wonder

One-hit wonder

A one-hit wonder is a person or act known mainly for only a single success. The term is most often used to describe music performers with only one hit single.-Characteristics:...

s.

Discography

• Softly Whispering I Love You (Signpost Records, 1972)
• Jesahel (Signpost, 1972)